00 » IC Event: Shared dream #1: The tower of Kinloch Hold [OPEN]
[Backdated to April 30.]
* * *
The boatman's oars strike the water in an unchanging rhythm. The moon's image ripples silver and gold in the wake of the boat. The girl dangles her hand deep over the edge, her fingers cool in the water and her face a mirrored blur in the deep blue surface of the lake.
"Sit straight!" The voice is curt. Someone raps her upside the head, and she flinches upright as her hulking, cowled guardian settles into stillness again. Chastened into immobility, her back stiff and her head stinging with the smart wallop, she sees the tower for the first time.
It looms out of the late evening twilight like the fort of a fairytale king, gleaming tall on the rocky island in the middle of the lake. Her heart speeds up, an almost-painful thumping in her chest.
It is so grand. It is to be home.
The library is full of hushed conversation, heads ostensibly hunched over books and scrolls turning towards other readers for excited whispering. The smell of beeswax candles softens the air and the chill glowing off the high stone walls. The maiden sits in her heavy woollen robes, the book in her lap, her hands clasped together.
She has heard the whispers, too. It could be tonight. If the Maker is kind, it will be tonight.
The sharp footfalls of the instructor beat the chattering into simmering, expectant silence. The skirts of her robes swish, suddenly audible, with her movement. She steps into the middle of the students clustered around their reading tables.
She unfolds a note in her hand and begins reading names. Each of them knells like a bell, like a summons to prayer.
The woman follows a man, wide of shoulder even under his heavy armour emblazoned with a flaming sword, down a curving stone corridor. Anger and anguish constrict her heart, but her words deflect from the man like sword blows off the steel plate that he wears.
"What happened to him?" It is her own voice, watery with tears. "Please. Please."
"It is not of your concern. You will be assigned another in due time."
She wants to fly at him, to beat him with her bare hands, to fling him into the wall like she knows that she could. But she is tethered by chains finer and more binding than any the eye can see. The price would be one she is not ready to pay.
Her steps veer and the stone of the wall takes her weight, its comfort cold and hollow. No amount of begging or cajoling will turn their hearts. It is done.
It is done, and she is left to bear the weight of it. Clambering up to a window in the wall, she climbs up on the wide sill and stares out onto the grey, windy waters of the lake that bars her from the world.
* * *
The boatman's oars strike the water in an unchanging rhythm. The moon's image ripples silver and gold in the wake of the boat. The girl dangles her hand deep over the edge, her fingers cool in the water and her face a mirrored blur in the deep blue surface of the lake.
"Sit straight!" The voice is curt. Someone raps her upside the head, and she flinches upright as her hulking, cowled guardian settles into stillness again. Chastened into immobility, her back stiff and her head stinging with the smart wallop, she sees the tower for the first time.
It looms out of the late evening twilight like the fort of a fairytale king, gleaming tall on the rocky island in the middle of the lake. Her heart speeds up, an almost-painful thumping in her chest.
It is so grand. It is to be home.
The library is full of hushed conversation, heads ostensibly hunched over books and scrolls turning towards other readers for excited whispering. The smell of beeswax candles softens the air and the chill glowing off the high stone walls. The maiden sits in her heavy woollen robes, the book in her lap, her hands clasped together.
She has heard the whispers, too. It could be tonight. If the Maker is kind, it will be tonight.
The sharp footfalls of the instructor beat the chattering into simmering, expectant silence. The skirts of her robes swish, suddenly audible, with her movement. She steps into the middle of the students clustered around their reading tables.
She unfolds a note in her hand and begins reading names. Each of them knells like a bell, like a summons to prayer.
The woman follows a man, wide of shoulder even under his heavy armour emblazoned with a flaming sword, down a curving stone corridor. Anger and anguish constrict her heart, but her words deflect from the man like sword blows off the steel plate that he wears.
"What happened to him?" It is her own voice, watery with tears. "Please. Please."
"It is not of your concern. You will be assigned another in due time."
She wants to fly at him, to beat him with her bare hands, to fling him into the wall like she knows that she could. But she is tethered by chains finer and more binding than any the eye can see. The price would be one she is not ready to pay.
Her steps veer and the stone of the wall takes her weight, its comfort cold and hollow. No amount of begging or cajoling will turn their hearts. It is done.
It is done, and she is left to bear the weight of it. Clambering up to a window in the wall, she climbs up on the wide sill and stares out onto the grey, windy waters of the lake that bars her from the world.